My story

[sbisme]

It goes along the line of could this be supersedure,
Two weeks ago I returned from an 8 day holiday to find three capped Queen cells, had a look for the queen but no sign although there were eggs so my thought was I had just missed a swarm, I needed to expand so I made a Nuc up from two qc's and left one in the original hive, that night I realised I hadn't marked the frame with the QC and with eggs being there I thought they migt make some further QC's so the next day I opened up the hive again and spotted the old marked queen taking a closer look her wing tips looked ragged alsmost like a worn out workers, the current queen is a 2015 btw.

So I broke down the QC's and put the hive back together, a week later another inspection and all looked OK. Today there are two more QC's nearly ready to be capped so my thoughts are supercedure? I have clipped the queen as my thoughts are if its swarm preps then I should be able to gather the swarm and if it's supercedure I will pick this up on the next inspection if the QC's are capped and the old queen is still there.

The hive is a strong hive on 4 supers that they are filling fast but no evidence of back filling the brood box so they have room or the queen does.

 

[sbisme]

My thoughts were right, had a quick look in the brood box today and two capped QC's, one queen and fresh eggs so I am presuming supercedure taking place.

 

[Poly Hive]

Excellent.

Leave alone and treasure the line s it is a huge asset to have a supercedure strain.

I know of one sup where two queens co-existed for 15 months but it takes clipped and marked queens to sus that out!

PH

 

[sbisme]

Thanks PH I will let you know the outcome over the next few weeks/months

 

[sbisme]

Sat this evening watching three bees dispatch a wasp and could here the new queen piping, looking forward to getting in there and see what the outcome is in an a few weeks.

 

[Swarm]

Fingers crossed.

 

[sbisme]

Thanks Steve

 

[sbisme]

Hmm I must have missed another QC as last Saturday I watched them swarm, first time of seeing a swarm and a great sight, lucky they went over the fence into some allotments and settled 2ft up on some blackcurrents.
So off I went to collect them back, they are now hived up next to the hive they left and yesterday I watched the queen take flight on her mating flight, so fingers crossed she made it home ok,

 

[Swarm]

Did you do the lottery?

 

[sbisme]

Always Steve

 

[beeno]

All's well that ends well, but it ain't supersedure. Hope you have got good mating weather. I am waiting for one to get mated myself.

 

[sbisme]

Good weather here beeno fingers crossed they both mate

 

[sbisme]

Just a quick update on hives, Nuc box queen has mated with BIAS, main hive queen mated with BIAS and swarm hive queen mated with BIAS as off today's inspection.

Let's hope they build up to get through winter.

 

[beeno]

Great news Shaun. Mine got mated and laying and I will be looking to see if it is worker brood on Sunday.